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Hornets-76ers: Expect Beaucoup Buckets in Philly Friday

The Hornets are at a crossroads as a franchise, and this season’s outcome will weigh heavily on whether they blow it up or keep building. With a road game coming up Friday in Philadelphia, there is some room to find value in the NBA odds.

The 76ers have been anything but consistent on offense, but they did show some of their offensive upside Wednesday in Indiana. Now back home against the Hornets, can we bet on he Sixers continuing to play well on that end of the floor?

Offensive Upside

The Sixers did a lot of good things offensively in their last game against a tough Indiana defense, and now with the Hornets coming to town, they may be able to continue that trend. Philly is tough to guard and the Hornets are not a very big team.

Joel Embiid should be a lot to contain for the Hornets’ rotation of big men, and after looking un-guardable on Wednesday, Ben Simmons might also be in that territory on Friday at home. Outside of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who is still very limited on offense, the Hornets don’t have much they can throw at Simmons on defense.

Nic Batum is an accomplished defender, but he is no match for the size of Simmons. Marvin Williams is an above average defender, but he has also lost a step since his glory days on defense. Simply put, if Simmons and Embiid are getting whatever they want on offense, it will open up more shots for the other Sixers as well.

On the flip side is the Hornets, who has been surprisingly very efficient on the offensive end so far this season. Charlotte is averaging 115.3 points per 100 possessions, which ranks 4th-best in the league behind only Golden State, Toronto, and Portland.

If the Hornets don’t have anyone to guard Simmons, the Sixers probably don’t have anyone to slow down Kemba Walker, who would likely be in the MVP discussion if the Hornets were any good. Sure Charlotte is in the playoff picture now, but that likely won’t hold past Christmas.

However, it will if the Hornets keep playing well on offense. Combined with an increased pace against the run and gun Sixers, and we could have a very high scoring game Friday night.

These two teams already have played once this year to a 105-103 win for the Sixers are few weeks ago. With these two teams both owning good defenses, this play does come with a little risk. The total has been dropping some since it opened, but eventually that is going to open up some room for us to bet the over.

In that last game against one another, both teams shot under 39 percent from the floor, and they still put up 103 and 105 points respectfully. The Hornets also shot only 25 percent from three-point range in that game, which is well below their season average of 36.5 percent from downtown.

My point is, that both teams still scored a good amount of points in their last meetings, despite not hitting many shots. Imagine if both teams are somewhere around 42, or even 45 percent shooting on Friday.

If that is the case, neither defense will be able to hold the other. If both teams are getting what they want on offense, the chances of this one going over are pretty good. The Hornets currently rank 6th in the league in team effective field goal percentage, so don’t discount their ability to score on the road at the Wells Fargo Center.